OPINION — “With respect to some of the reporting that we’ve seen over the past few weeks about arms transfers or potential arms transfers to Israel, some of which we have not officially notified to Congress and have not moved forward on at all…a lot of those are with respect to weapons systems that would not be delivered for years – long after, hopefully, the conflict in Gaza has been resolved.”
That was State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller talking to reporters last Wednesday, trying to deal with the complicated situation surrounding the U.S delivery of military weapons to Israel against the background of the current fighting in Gaza.
Israel’s use of American-supplied weapons against Hamas in Gaza, with the resultant deaths and injuries to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, has become a major controversial issue for the Biden administration, particularly since the Israeli air strikes that killed seven employees of the World Central Kitchen aid organization on the night of April 1.
These U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel have been made more difficult for the public to understand because of the lack of clarity as to which weapons the Israelis have already bought, which have been provided on an emergency basis, and when they were delivered.
Less publicized, but I believe as important, has been Israel’s use of assassinations or targeted killings, the latest of which also took place April 1, when an Israeli air strike hit Iran’s chancery in Damascus, Syria, killing seven Iranian officers including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi. As leader of the Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria, Zahedi oversaw Tehran’s support for non-state groups that included Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis in Yemen.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, told Iranian state TV that the attack “was carried out by [Israeli American-made] F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building. I will discuss more about the assassination/targeted killings issue below.
On Thursday, John Kirby, the White House National Security Communications Advisor, clarified Miller’s remarks about American-supplied arms to Israel. “With the exception of the immediate two months after the attack,” Kirby said, “we haven’t really sent emergency aid and military assistance to — to Israel.”
Looking back, I found that on December 9, 2023—two months and two days after the Hamas attacks–the State Department announced Israel’s emergency request and U.S. approval of 13,891 120mm High Explosive Anti-Tank rounds. On December 29, the State Department announced approval of Israel’s request for the sale of 4,792 rounds of M107 155-mm artillery ammunition; 52,229 rounds of 155-mm artillery ammunition; and 30,000 M4 propelling charges (for use with 155-mm artillery), along logistics support services.
Following recently published stories about the U.S. supplying Israel with “bunker buster” bombs and the modern F-35 aircraft, Kirby also said Thursday that “what you’re seeing here is the result of a — a process of foreign military sales to Israel that takes years, and a lot of this materiel that’s been reported publicly was notified to Congress many, many months, if not years ago, and are in the train to get to Israel…And so, a lot of these articles, including the 2,000-pound bombs and the F-35s, that’s — those are things that have been long in the train and not tied — the sale — the foreign military sales process was not tied to this conflict.”
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A history of U.S. military aid
When it comes to American weaponry delivered to Israel, it needs to be pointed out that there are several sources for those arms.
One long-term major source of weapons for Israel that Miller and Kirby both talked about relates to past 10-year security assistance Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) between the U.S. and Israel.
A Bush Administration MOU, signed in 2007, guaranteed $3 billion a year in arms for Israel beginning in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 and running through FY 2018. The MOU was renewed in September 2016, during the Obama administration, and increased to $3.8 billion a year to run through FY 2028.
The Obama MOU included an annual $3.3 billion Foreign Military Financing (FMF) funds, and another $500 million in missile defense funding each year for the duration of the understanding.
An example of the current impact of the MOU purchases goes back to mid-October 2023, 10 days after the bloody Hamas attack on Israel. On Oct. 17, 2023, Bloomberg reported that Boeing Co. was speeding up delivery of a 2021 Israeli purchase of $735 million worth of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits for bombs of 500 pounds and heavier. The sale provided for deliveries over several years, but that timetable was accelerated after the Hamas attack.
Another U.S. military program that has provided weapons for Israel, is the so-called U.S. War Reserves Stocks for Allies in Israel, known as WRSA-I. Begun in the 1980s, it stores U.S. arms and equipment on Israeli bases for use in wartime. The initial limit was $100 million worth of stored missiles, armored vehicles and artillery munitions, but the amount stored has increased over time to at least $1.2 billion and perhaps as high as $4 billion.
Retired-Adm. James Stavridis, a Cipher Brief expert, wrote in a January 25, 2023, article in Bloomberg, “The current [WRSA-I] stockpile is full of so-called dumb munitions (those without sophisticated guidance systems), such as the 155-mm rounds and thousands of ‘iron bombs’ that are simply dropped from aircraft so gravity can do its work.”
Stavridis also said, “Israel has tapped into the stockpiles (by paying for and withdrawing the weapons) at least twice, in 2006 and 2014, during the Lebanon and Gaza conflicts, respectively.”
One recent Biden administration plan to aid Israel involves temporarily waiving limitations on the total value of the WRSA-I defense stockpiles and setting additional of the stored weapons aside for Israel’s use.
Still pending before Congress is a $14 billion package of arms for Israel that was first proposed after the Hamas attack last October by President Biden. Versions of this package have separately passed the Senate and the House, but not both in a single version.
This package includes $4 billion for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, missile defense systems currently in use in Israel. There is another $1.2 billion in the package for Iron Beam, a promising new high-energy laser defense system, created by an Israeli company, Rafael, which could become helpful to Israel and the U.S.
Also in the package is $3.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel to purchase arms; a separate $800 million for U.S.-produced 155-mm artillery rounds; $198 million for small-diameter bombs and precision-guided rockets; $4.4 billion to replenish the U.S. stocks transferred to Israel, such as precision-guided and other critical munitions, and medical supplies for Israel’s Defense Forces.
It remains to be seen when Congress will approve this measure.
Meanwhile, back on February 8, President Biden issued a National Security Memorandum (NSM-20) entitled, Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services. The document requires meeting “credible and reliable” standards in the use of U.S.-supplied weapons, and eventually public reporting on their use by the recipient countries. The issuance of NSM-20 was prompted by disapproval by some Democratic Senators of Israel’s use of American-weaponry in Gaza.
As required by NSM-20, Israel gave assurance on March 25 that it was meeting the standards required, despite reports that U.S. weapons were being used on civilians. The next step, under NSM-20, is for the Biden administration to compile a public report on Israel’s use of American weapons going back to include 2023, and sending it to Congress by May 8.
Meanwhile, the April 1 strike on Iran’s chancery in Damascus will warrant additional public discussion as well. The attack has raised the question of whether what occurred was an assassination, considered an unlawful killing, or a targeted killing, undertaken to protect the national security of the country involved, in this case Israel.
The Israeli government has justified such actions in the past as self-defense against terrorist groups. In 2006, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled military commanders must have “strong and convincing” information before ordering such an attack and should not do so “if a less harmful means can be employed,” namely arrest. The ruling also says that “every effort must be made to minimize harm to innocent civilians.”
The U.S. put an assassination ban in place in February 1976, during the Ford administration, after the Church Committee in 1975 uncovered Presidentially approved CIA assassination plots against leaders of Cuba and the Congo. Ford’s Executive Order 11905 said, “Prohibition of Assassination. No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”
Almost every U.S. President since has had to consider the so-called assassination ban.
In October 1988, Bob Woodward and I wrote a story about President Reagan’s authorizations in 1984 and 1985 of pre-emptive covert operations against Middle East terrorists that could result in killings, but which were “deemed” lawful if conducted in “good faith.”
The Trump administration’s January 2020 killing of Iranian Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani by an American drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, has been cited by some as a precedent for Israel’s Damascus strike last week.
After the strike against Soleimani, the White House told Congress that Trump had “directed” the strike that killed him “in response to an escalating series of attacks in preceding months by Iran and Iran-backed militias on the United States forces and interests in the Middle East.” They added that Soleimani had posed an “imminent threat.”
When it became clear that last week’s Israeli attack in Damascus had involved U.S.-made Israeli F-35 which delivered American-like precision-guided weapons, Biden administration officials quickly made clear to Iran that the U.S. was unaware of the attack ahead of time and played no part in it.
But taken together, the Israeli strike in Damascus and its use of American weapons in Gaza are raising profound and controversial questions about the role of U.S. military assets in the region.
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